In which the pond is sucked into the terrorism vortex yet again, while Barners gets sucked into the black hole of coal, coal, coal for Australia, and the wooorrrrld ...

(Above: over the years Leunig has gone silly - please don't ask the pond about vaccines - but this one tickled the pond's fancy, and more Leunig here).

During various therapy sessions, the pond slowly began to understand why reptile 'roid rage was more appealing than calm and sanity.

It was because the raging, and the frothing and the foaming perversely did lead the pond to a form of tranquility. After a decent suck of the kool aid in the morning, the rest of the day could be spent getting as close to normal as the madness of the world, or at least the Shanghai stock exchange, allowed.

And if the commentariat are having a quiet day, there's always Liberals feuding to settle the nerves.

Like Julie Bishop coming out today and giving the raging 'roid-ridden reptiles an EXCLUSIVE:

Now for those who can remember what the fabulous eastern suburbs fop said - how cruel it was to read Crikey's Turnbull should put up or shut up - he very carefully broke Godwin's Law - where's your swear jar money big Mal? - by invoking Hitler and Stalin and similar mass murderers with millions of victims to their names.

It'd take considerable skill to turn Daesh into that level of threat, you know, what with world wars and the slaughter and the Holocaust and so on and so forth, but you have to admire Ms Bishop keeping up the kool aid intake and maintaining the hysteria.

It took two grave and solemn-looking reptiles to scribble down Ms Bishop's dark, dire thoughts, and it's worthwhile looking at the modus operandi to see how the reptiles can keep stirring the pot of hysteria and fear-mongering.

First comes Bishop going at Turnbull:

Uh huh. It was a brave try, even if the result was pathetic, just like Bishop's earlier attempt to conform, by portraying Islamic fundamentalists as the new communism ... a standard strategy of the 'born to rule' brigade, who need their enemies as much as their enemies need them, and required form for those seeking to escape the wrath of Big Brother and his office.

However she cuts it, with blather about existential threats, Bishop's just toeing the line expected in Abbottonia, a la la hysteria land ...

It's only then that the reptiles let drop a little hoppy toad or two which might help explain why Bishop felt the need to offer the reptile EXCLUSIVE:

It could be argued that the real criminals in all this are King Bush the 43rd (will there be a Bush 44?), and his cronies, and fellow travellers like John Howard and his cabinet, who paved the way for all the upheavals currently going down in the middle east.

They facilitated it and made it happen, and by claiming a small band of ratbags in the middle east is somehow equivalent to the Nazis and the Stalinists is a wonderful distraction from their guilt.

It just goes to show how faded memories of the Cuban missile crisis have become, and how Bob Ellis took his girlfriend to the Blue Mountains to escape the impending end times (well Bob is self-admittedly a fool), and so the current stupidities and comparisons can only pass because it's assumed young folk can no longer actually remember the terror of those days, and instead can only marvel at the stupidity of their elders.

But back to the story, because it's necessary to give a little time to the Billistas:

Yes, yes, but where are the Nazis, there must be Nazis in this story of story?

Come on down, classic loon Alex Hawke for a momentously silly abuse of the English language:

No, it's not effectively the same as the Nazis in Germany, young Alex, and you've just copped a bloody big Godwin's Law swear jar, young Alex, for an enormously stupid remark, and if you happened to have Jewish parents despatched in the Holocaust, also enormously offensive.

They might want to kill, but they've got a long way to go before they're up there with the Nazis, and no amount of word games can get around that effectively stupid comparison of yours.

Now for the wrap up and a little watering down:

Ah the hose down and the balancing for the end par, but now you see how the reptiles have done their noble duty.

They've kept the terrorism fear-mongering and hysteria front and centre - note that link to "Taking on Terror" in the splash - and the terrorism debate keeps rolling on, and the pond has wasted valuable time on it, and Nazis and nukes and commie bastards have rolled out, and we must all retire to bed, quaking and quivering at the thought that Daesh are coming to get us, every single one of us, and we must keep Tony Abbott in power, no matter how he ignores the economy and keeps fucking up ...

Why it's just as bad as watching that second Poltergeist movie, except it's so lame and such a badly scripted and directed and enacted movie, that you'd have to be a ten year old to get a fright out of the yarn ... but there's your demographic in reptile and Abbott la la land, the ten year old in all of us ... afraid of the nameless thing that lurks under the bed ... (though in the pond's case it was behind the toilet door in the outside 'loo, at least when the redbacks weren't out and about and being an actual, real threat).

And so to another matter, which features good old Barners, but first we want to celebrate Andrew Meares:

The pond has been conducting a contest to discover the very best photo of Barners, but we've had to suspend it to give Andrew Meares a gold gong, a blue riband,  for a champion effort.

Now for the downside, because poor old Barners and Liverpool plains farmers have discovered the downside of 'coal, coal, coal for Australia ... and the wooorrrrld', as you can read in Fairfax and Nicole Hasham's piece, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce slams Abbott government over Shenhua coal mine approval.

Oh there's another tasty photo of Barners, right there, but let's cut to his cheerful Facebook page:

The pond weeps for the Liverpool plains and its farmers - just as it weeps for the Hunter Valley whenever we drive through the moonscape it's become - but there you go Tamworth, that's what happens when you vote in a useless dumbo.

All Barners can do is rage at the moon, and shake his fist and talk of madness and soon enough there'll be more valuable and attractive farm land irretrievably destroyed, and perhaps the water table with it, while jolly Joe and Tony will keep on talking of the ugliness of wind mills ...

But is there another reason for Barner's fear? Is there another reason he rails at his own government, and pretends he's not a part of it and its decisions?

Be afraid, Barners, be very afraid, perhaps there are more frightening things than Daesh in the world. The pond suggests that from now on you check under your bed every night ...

What else? Well, the reptiles have been showing signs of fatigue in their crusade, and so they have had to turn to the barking mad in the Labor party to maintain the rage and keep the home fires burning:

Oh for fuck's sake. It might be a terrible show, but letting people have a chat on television is "against democracy"?

What passes for democracy in Danby's bizarro world?

You do remember where the pond started, with that Leunig cartoon and the blue ties and the perfect match, and why don't they just get married and fuck themselves silly, and while they're doing it, everyone else might have a bit of peace and get on with life ...

But sure enough, another tiresome old dodderer has also turned up in Fairfax this very day ...

It's come to the attention of the pond that this tedious old fart routinely turns up on ABC shows such as The Drum, boring viewers witless and committing crimes against reason, rationality and democracy.

It's about time he stopped, and joined the banning and the shunning and the banishing and all the other childish petulance currently doing the rounds ...

If you want to go there, you can, but here's the clue to Sheehan's ultimate gormlessness ... which conforms to the 'yes but' school of silliness ...

... the ABC board's decision to conduct a review of QandA has quickly been compromised, with one of the two people commissioned to conduct the review, Ray Martin, describing as "silly" the decision by Prime Minister Tony Abbott to pull his ministers from appearing on the show. 
I agree with Martin ...

He agrees!!

Now go on billy goat, do your billy goat 'butt, butt' routine ...

... but he is the last person who should be blithely discussing the merits of QandA right now. 

And Sheehan is?

Yes, because he's discerned a deep agenda, no doubt the same agenda as occurs when he's invited on to The Drum to bore viewers witless ... to inflict half-baked members of the commentariat wittering on about the wickedness and evil of other chattering members of the commentariat.

With lines like this ...

The other person selected to conduct the review, Shaun Brown, was managing director of SBS, not exactly a hotbed of journalistic impartiality.

Whereas Paul "magic water man" Sheehan, the lover of ten dollar sourdough bread, is apparently under the delusion that he represents a hotbed of journalistic impartiality and so can set himself up as judge and jury.

So it goes Barners in this land, and yes indeed the world has gone barking mad, but what can we do, except dig up the soil and produce a wasteland, because it's coal, coal, coal for Australia, and Paul 'the magic water man' Sheehan for Fairfax readers ...

But at least there's always Rowe, and more Rowe here, and notice - as some have done - the Weimar expressionist touch of the shadowy, sinister figures lurking the background, making mischief and no doubt getting ready to burn the Reichstag, because that will surely guarantee re-election ...

Oh and here's a dollar in the swear jar, even if those in power yearn for yet another terrorist incident to help maintain the rage ...